The BBC Culture Top 100… first thoughts

Allegedly, it’s the best 100 films from this century so far. It may have only been 16 years, but hey, it’s shit like this we need to know, right?

Mulholland Dr. topped the poll. For me personally: a guaranteed top 10, a top 5 contender… but the winner? The creme de la creme of this generation? I’m skeptical.

Boyhood, There Will Be Blood and the Coen Bros. place highly to my relief. Children of Men even scrapes a top 15 slot. I was pleasantly surprised to see a few animated outings for Pixar and Studio Ghibli. It’s a good balance, but it’s not ironed out.

I can understand the tendency to miss out films from the past few years, but there are some serious casualties: no Drive? No Birdman?

Granted, I haven’t seen half of these entries (a crime that is punishable by death in some quarters) but I know that those two minor examples above deserve inclusion.

Fincher’s best film in the 21st century is easily The Social Network, yet Zodiac places ahead. You can see where I’m heading – I’m not a happy bunny with every entry. But you can’t please everyone.

In light of this, here be my top 10.

This was hard. Very hard. Narrowing down is not my strong point so this is a very loose, but worthy, top 10 that reflects my subjective opinion. I didn’t want to just follow the trends of others, or other lists. I wanted to reflect my personal awe for cinema. Anyway, I’m I will undoubtedly look at this list tomorrow and feel I could happily remove half the contenders, so have that in mind.